milleniumgypsy | On dentists

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On dentists

I feel bad that I haven't been updating regularly this week! I've just been so tired. I was working extra hours at work throughout the week so I could leave early today so I could go to the dentist. I only had to go in today to get a cleaning and a checkup at least! I was really excited to get my teeth cleaned though because this fall I must have been drinking more soda than usual because I ended up with more staining than usual. I've always gotten a little bit of staining over the course of time before my cleaning because I do drink soda and tea, but this time was waaay more than I'm used to. It all got cleaned off though today! I feel like I need to smile at everyone now. lol

The cleaning itself was interesting though. The woman who was cleaning my teeth used a different tool to clean off the stains, it looked like a pick but it had a stream of water and I think it vibrated. As she was cleaning my front teeth she was like spraying water all over my face. I felt like I was going to look like I came out of the pool by the time she was done. Then when she was cleaning my teeth more normally she decided she needed to pack my mouth with cotton gauze. That was odd and kind of uncomfortable. :P
I hadn't had my teeth cleaned by this hygenist before. I was sort of sad because the woman who I'd scheduled with wasn't the one who did it this time, maybe she left? There seems to be turnover there for some reason. The other girl had just been really funny and chatty and made the time go by faster. The new woman was nice and got my teeth cleaned fine though, so despite some of the oddness I can't complain.

Then my old dentist moved to Texas so I met my new dentist today. He talked about getting my wisdom teeth out (I know I need to, but I haven't been able to swing the extra cost of going to the oral surgeon, plus I'd need to take some time off of work to get it done and then how long will it be before I can go back to work... Also dentists freak me right the fuck out so I know I need to but I am not looking forward to this.).

He then also asked me if I'd want to get braces. I do have some crowding in my teeth, but luckily the majority of crookedness is in my back teeth. He said that while I was getting my wisdom teeth out, I could get more teeth pulled out so an orthodontist could work with the extra space.

Then he started futzing around with my tongue, and I was like ooookay I don't know what this has to do with my teeth, then I realized what he was probably doing. I'm tongue tied but it doesn't affect my speech at all, and as I'd have to relearn how to talk and stuff when I was younger we decided it wasn't worth messing with. Anyway, so the dentist is like "Do you have trouble pronouncing certain words?". Do a lot of people who are tongue tied not realize that they are or something? I think it's kind of ridiculous that he seemed to assume that I did not realize this was the case, so he was going to have some sort of big reveal.

He said that I could get my tongue snipped the same time I was getting my wisdom teeth out! I realize getting the most bang for your buck is good since I'd be knocked out, but he really thinks I should get 4 wisdom teeth out, 2-4 other teeth out, and slice up my tongue all at the same time? o_O I feel like I'd want to kill him for the suggestion if I decided it was a brilliant plan to go through with all of it but wouldn't be able to since my face would probably want to fall off or something.

I'm actually ok with my weird teeth so I'm not sure about braces, and I really don't think I'm going to go crazy and pull out ALL THE TEETH when I do go to the oral surgeon. I'm certainly not going to start messing with my tongue. Is it a requirement of a new dentist to make sure that all possible expensive procedures are introduced? e_e

Good news though, no cavities, besides any in my wisdom teeth that we never look at because they're going to get pulled out eventually. I do need to get a couple of things fixed up from the work that my previous dentist did, there's a gap under one of my fillings and flash on a different one. But yay no cavities!

I really didn't mean to make such a long entry about going to the dentist. o_O

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I'm going to have to tell my dental higenist about this when I go in to get my teeth cleaned if I remember. Actually, I should check my calender to see when it is since we make them six months ahead of time! Mine is cool and she talks forever and I'm like how do I answer with all of this stuff in my mouth? lol

I do, but in the cases where they can be left because there is no problem I'm like why get them out? I think my brother is going to have a problem because he said that he doesn't have any space for his to even grow in at so he's like... where the heck are they going to come in at?! Every crap dentist that I saw was like YOU NEED THOSE OUT, DEEP CLEANING, AND A BUNCH OF RANDOM EXPENSIVE STUFF THAT YOU DON'T NEED :D One couldn't keep which side of my mouth that all of this "work" needed to be done on!

Yeah, the only problem is if there is a cavity in one of them you wouldn't want to let it get out of control to the point that you ended up needing a root canal on a wisdom tooth and have to rush around to get them pulled. I don't feel cavities so it's always SURPRISE! and I'm like wut, but I had a dentist try and claim that I needed a root canal on a tooth that was fine and cavities in teeth that have already been filled. I've been jaded while looking for a new dentist lol.

Two of my cousins that didn't need braces had them on for two years when they're teeth were almost perfectly straight to begin with. I don't even want to know how many years that I'd be stuck in them if I got them since my teeth are totally not close to being straight lol. Apparently I can now get them fixed by invisaline now(which wow, they've come a long way!), but I can't afford those either. One day lol. Until then my dentist told me how to brush some of my teeth differently to hit the spots that I might miss because they aren't straight.

Why is dental work so expensive though?! A lot of them claim a bunch of work that you don't need that's all conveniently uber expensive too!

That's so odd though. Most dentists are rushing around trying to convince you to get your wisdom teeth removed before they even start to come in or the minute one is there when there's no problem with them and can be left alone. You had the opposite!

I don't get asked about deep cleaning, but I'm not sure what that actually is. n_n' It might be what they do for me since it takes them longer than normal to give me my cleanings, but it's just charged to my insurance as a regular cleaning?

Yeah I don't want it to get to that point, but because of cost I can't really go earlier either. n_n' My teeth can be sensitive in some ways, but I was really surprised with how many cavities I actually had when I finally got to the dentist after my dentist hiatus. I really wasn't in pain or anything, I thought I might have a couple small things, not the amount of work I ended up needing!

I wish dental work wasn't so expensive! I wish health care in general wasn't so expensive. :/

My teeth are pretty crooked, luckily mostly in the back, but like you I can't even imagine how long it would take to make them "perfect". n_n''

I know, it's so weird, especially after being out in the world and having other dentists and talking to other people about their dental experiences! He was really odd comparitively, I wish I'd had your more standard dentist encounter back then lol.

You'd know if you ever had a deep cleaning! They have to numb your mouth for it and it's not covered by dental insurance. Depending on the dentist, it can run anywhere from $400-$800+

There are a lot of dentists that bust it out on new patients and claim that they CANNOT do any of the other expensive dental work that you may or may not even need until you get the deep cleaning. It's mostly older people that need it because of the large plaque buildup over their lifetime. Once you have it done the chances that you need a deep cleaning ever again is extremely slim, let alone once a year. You can read about deep cleanings. It's not an in and out thing like a teeth cleaning and you can't eat anything spicy or acidy because it will burn the bajesus out of your gums for a bit after that.

I don't care about perfect teeth lol. I used to want braces until one day I realized that I didn't want braces because I wanted straight teeth, I wanted braces because OTHER people wanted me to have straight teeth. The too straight teeth look is rather ugly to me XD Most people come out of braces with the too straight teeth look and I would hate it. My grandma and aunt spent years in braces, especially my grandma because she had really bad teeth. My aunt wasted all of that dental work on drugs. Her teeth are now dead and she's pissed because no dentist will do any work on her unless she's getting them removed and prepped for dental implants or dentures.

lol, its one of the few times that you wished you had one that tries to wam bam everyone's wisdom teeth!

Ah, I see! I haven't had that then!

I get what you mean about too straight teeth! I also am not interested in whitening, besides the questionable aspects of whitening, I'm not really sold on blazing white teeth. It doesn't look natural! Obviously I want to keep them looking nice, but I do think there is a point that it's too much. n_n'

That sucks about your aunt!
I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time in braces either, I'm not sure it's worth it to me.

haha, I know! I think he was fine otherwise, but I really have to grumble about taking that advice now. :P

Same here. I can see whitening them because of staining, but not like shining white teeth from a distance lol.

Same here. Plus, having braces glued to the inside of your mouth and applying wax to them to try and prevent that does not sound like anything anyone would want!

Poor wisdom teeth lmao. A guy I went to school with had his removed and when they tried to put him under he was still awake and fine. So they did it again and he was still awake so they removed them. Then he went home and everything hit him and he was out the entire night lmao. He was one of the few that had no pain from their removal so we can hold a prayer circle that yours will be the same when the time comes!

lol omg, that is so random that he wasn't out until well after the procedure! At least he got a good nights sleep? xD I'm glad that he didn't have pain afterwards!

Scottie actually has had pretty easy extractions, he's pulled them one at a time as they become an issue. He could have gotten at least one of them out at the same time he did the last one, but he decided since it wasn't hard to just wait so that he'd only have to worry about one spot at a time. He has the space for them so they're pretty easy and he doesn't have the dentist anxiety that I do, so he's just gotten them pulled out without being knocked out. I hope that I have that sort of luck but I don't think that I will. n_n'

ikr?! It was so strange!

Well thats good! At lot of people that instead of getting them all out at once, or before they even start to come in the first place if there is space for them. My brother has dentist anxiety due to a bad dentist he saw when we were kids. This lady was crazy. Plus his a big baby so the two together did not go well lol. She filled a couple of cavities and she yelled at me the whole time. Plus she was drilling so hard that I was in intense pain and had to have my mouth renumbed a few times even though the pain was not because it wore off. She was the children's dentist. Anyway, he freaks out before the dentist from the memories of that crazy woman and all he had was a teeth cleaning from her! Was it a bad experience that got you?

It was a bad experience I guess! I was alright with dentists when I was a kid, even though I had a lot of fillings and stuff. I even had a couple of teeth pulled! But something triggered me to start having anxiety (not really sure what or why actually.

When I started seeing my most recent dentist though stuff really started to go downhill. He actually said more recently that he thinks I have a bad reaction to novicane, which is possible. But the first time that I went to see him to get work done the experience was just awful. First off, during the checkup he didn't actually tell me how many cavities I had so I wasn't actually sure what I was getting into when I went to my appt. Then they set me up with a really uncomfortable mouth opener (dental dam?) thing... and then I sat waiting for the dentist unable to close my mouth for like 15 minutes. I have a small mouth so those things are really uncomfortable for me. My jaw was starting to hurt before he even got there. Then he worked on 3 teeth, by the end all I could think about was how much my jaw/face hurt from being stuck open (and it was still sore days afterward). Then one of the teeth he was drilling he was like "Oh hey I see nerve, want a root canal?". He said it looked healthy so he just put medicine down on top of it and filled it. I couldn't have even imagined going for a root canal at that point. Then when they heat the filling resin it takes all I have to not throw up, the smell makes me so nauseous. I was in there for like 3 hours. Every time after that I was just dreading it would be another visit like that, though I made sure he told me what was going on before I got to my appts. :P

I also don't seem to take novicane very well, so it takes a million pokes before stuff is actually numb. :P

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